Go Beneath the Surface
The 2018/2019 Season – 35 years of ground breaking performance

How is it That We Live or Shakey Jake + Alice

by Len Jenkin

A World Premiere

September 13 – October 7, 2018

Directed by Undermain Artistic Director Katherine Owens

Opening Night Saturday September 15, 2018

Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7:30 pm with Sunday 2:00 matinees

How is it That We Live or Shakey Jake + Alice traces the arc of the lives of two lovers through the years, from the first kiss to the last goodbye and everything in between. On the road, in an indelible American landscape, Shakey Jake + Alice launch themselves on a poetic quest as they dance to the end of love. Longtime Undermain collaborator Len Jenkin explores the psyches of life-long partners to answer the question, “How is it that we live?”

Henrik Ibsen

The Lady from the Sea

by Henrik Ibsen

A Dallas Premiere

November 7 – December 2, 2018

***Added preview on November 7th at 7:30 pm!***

Directed by Undermain Company Member Blake Hackler

Opening Night Saturday November 10, 2018

Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7:30 pm with Sunday 2:00 matinees

There will be no performance on Thanksgiving, Thursday, November 22.

Undermain returns to the Classics with Ibsen’s rarely seen drama, The Lady from the Sea. Ellida, a lighthouse-keeper’s daughter, is trapped on an island in her marriage and longs for the sea. The conflict in the mermaid-like Ellida Wangel is between her duty to her devoted husband and her attraction to a mysterious, seagoing stranger from her past. Her duty to convention takes second place to an otherworldly awareness of more mystical bonds challenging her wedding vows. Written in 1888, years after A Doll’s House but before Hedda Gabler, The Lady from the Sea continues Ibsen’s exploration of the imbalances of marriage and a woman’s need for freedom. It is haunting and delightfully real in its display of this world and the otherworld, with both containing an intoxicating desire to be set free.

A Modern Classic sponsored by Cece and Ford Lacy.

“The Lady from the Sea is one of the strangest and most haunting of Ibsen’s works.”

–The Independent

“The Lady from the Sea is full of spine-tingling moments with no lack of contemporary resonance.”

~The Globe and Mall

“The Lady from the Sea paints an astonishingly dynamic portrayal of relationships, looking hardest at the effect of a male-controlled society, where the benefits of marriage are reserved mainly for men. But the play’s through-line that marriage should be about equality – freedom of decision, working together and truth – is absolutely still something for today.” ~Time Out

Lisa Peterson

Denis O’Hare

An Iliad

by Lisa Peterson & Denis O’Hare

Adapted from the Robert Fagles translation of Homer

February 7 – March 3, 2019

Directed by Undermain Artistic Director Katherine Owens

Opening Night Saturday February 9, 2019

In the spirit of celebration of 35 years of cutting edge performance, Undermain establishes its Repertoire Series to honor the gems of its production history, with a reboot of An Iliad, and reviving this landmark production from 2012 starring Bruce DuBose and Paul Semrad and directed by Undermain Artistic Director Katherine Owens. An Iliad is a modern-day retelling of Homer’s classic. Poetry and humor, the ancient tale of the Trojan War and the modern world collide in this captivating theatrical experience. The setting is simple: the empty theater. The time is now: the present moment. The lone figure onstage is a storyteller—possibly Homer, possibly one of the many bards who followed in his footsteps. He is fated to tell this story throughout history.

“Bruce DuBose triumphs in ‘An Iliad’”

~The Dallas Morning News

“An astonishing one man performance.”

~TheaterJones

“The Muses have blessed An Iliadwith a perfect pair of artists — DuBose onstage and Katherine Owens, as director.”

~The Dallas Observer

“ …a 96-minute blowout for actor Bruce DuBose … It’s also a musical event. Director Katherine Owens has foregrounded the music. She brings Paul Semrad onstage to accompany DuBose playing mandolin, lyre, guitar and percussion … Still, even with all the music front and center, the Undermain’s Iliad is basically The Most Spellbinding Classical Lit Lecture You Never Attended.”

~Art & Seek

Matthew Paul Olmos

so go the ghosts of méxico, part three

By Matthew Paul Olmos

Opening Night Saturday – April 13, 2019

April 12 – May 5, 2019

Friday and Saturday evenings at 7:30 pm and 2:00 Sunday matinees

Directed by Undermain Artistic Director Katherine Owens

so go the ghosts of méxico, part three will be the centerpiece production of the Whither Goest Thou America Festival. This is the final installment in this three-play cycle exploring the U.S./México drug wars. A young Méxican couple get caught up in the web of the drug trade between the two countries, changing their lives forever. But is their ordeal what it seems or a mirage of disinformation created by unseen forces? Somewhere between truth and illusion a mother from México searches for her missing daughter. The third part of Matthew Paul Olmos’s daring and poetic trilogy explores the human struggle of the US/México drug wars and the shadowy forces which create the market and distribution system shaping the world on both sides of the border.

Whither Goest Thou America?

Readings of new American Plays

“Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?”

-Jack Kerouac, from On the Road

The Reading Series runs on Wednesdays and Thursdays from April 10, 2019 through May 2, 2019 at 7:30 pm.

Undermain presents a series of readings of new plays examining the current American Landscape. Each week of the series will focus on a different playwright and play with staged readings by an ensemble cast. Audiences will have the opportunity to return each week of the series to experience a new work examining the American experience and asking the question, “Where are we going?”